As the Cold War began to go into full swing, the United States soon realized the need for distinct agencies…
The Long, Incomplete Road for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
The movement to limit or even prohibit the testing of nuclear weapons has been around almost since the dawn of…
“The Wild West” — Peshawar and the Afghan Mujahedeen
In the late 1970s, the USSR had been supporting the Afghan government in its fight against rebels, who had made considerable…
Igniting Iraq’s Invasion of Kuwait – Loans, Land, Oil and Access
Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990 largely for economic reasons, but the contiguous Gulf countries had long-standing territorial conflicts…
Virtual Student Foreign Service Interns 2016-2017
Blair Boyd Blair is a senior linguistics major at Macalester College in Minnesota. She hopes to use this internship as…
Resolving the Czechoslovak Gold Dispute
As the Third Reich annexed the Sudetenland and Poland and the German war machine pushed through the Eastern Front towards…
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea — The CIA Mission to Raise a Soviet Sub
In March 1968, a K-129 Soviet nuclear submarine cruising in the Pacific Ocean mysteriously disappeared from Russian radar. Following an…
China’s Fight for Tiny Islands — The Taiwan Straits Crises, 1954-58
Recent disagreements over Beijing’s claim to the South China Seas (in which a tribunal constituted under the UN Convention on the…
Jesse Helms: The Senator Who Just Said No
Jesse Alexander Helms, a five-term Republican Senator (1973- 2003) from North Carolina, was known not only for his conservative beliefs…
The Extra Special Relationship: Thatcher, Reagan, and the 1980s
The “special relationship” between the United States and the United Kingdom has served to unite the two nations over the…